The Games Room
Sixteen of them. No accounts, no ads, nothing tracked, and every one works with the aeroplane mode on.
The two marked one phone are party games — everybody is in the same room and the phone goes round the table, so there is nothing to join. The ones marked four letters are played by more than one person on more than one phone. One of you opens the room and reads out four letters; everybody else types them. That is the whole ritual — no app, no invite link, no sign-in. And every one of them keeps working when whatever mints those four letters is unreachable: there is a camera-and-paste handshake underneath that needs no server at all.
Boards
The Chess Room
An engine, an opening book, and somebody to explain what just happened to you.
Four letters
The Checkers Board
English draughts, where jumping is compulsory and that single rule is the whole game.
Four letters
The Othello Board
The discs turn one line at a time, so you can watch what caused it instead of working it out backwards.
Four letters
The Field
Stratego. Forty pieces each and not one of them showing — and the machine cannot see yours either.
Four letters
The Star
Chinese checkers for two to six. The marbles you leave behind are the ladder the rest climb.
Four letters
Tables
The Domino Table
Partnership dominó with nothing in the boneyard, a real 3D table, and Don Chuy explaining the pass you missed.
Four letters
The Hearts Table
Twenty-six points nobody wants. Take none of them — or take every single one.
Four letters
The Euchre Table
Two jacks worth more than the aces, a partner across the table, and the dealer gets stuck.
Four letters
La Viuda
Whiskey poker. A spare hand face down in the middle, and only the worst hand pays.
Four letters
The Sheet
Yahtzee, where every open box tells you what it would score before you spend it.
Four letters
Round the room
The Hot Potato
Describe it without saying it, hand the phone on, and don't be holding it when the buzzer goes — nobody knows when that is.
One phone
The Charades Clock
Four cards, thirty seconds, no talking — and whatever you don't finish is gone for good.
One phone
On your own
The Sudoku Room
Puzzles graded by the technique they need, and a teacher for each one.
Alone
The Card Table
Klondike where the deal has already been proved winnable before you saw it.
Alone
The Minefield
Minesweeper with the coin toss taken out — every field can be finished by reasoning alone.
Alone
The Wall
A brick breaker with a paddle you aim with rather than a mirror you bounce off.
Alone
